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Nation: Ming
Version: Started with Divine Wind 5.0, patched 5.1b in 1585, applied all beta patches up and including 9th March beta patch in 1640.
Settings: Very Hard, Low Agressiveness, all other settings standard.

Welcome fellow strategists. In this AAR I will describe my Ming campaign in Divine Wind. The AAR will not be focussed on roleplaying, history writing or other non-gameplay issues. Instead I want to describe a campaign played with certain strategies and explain the choices I make. Hopefully this will provide you with food for thought and discussion and in the end, entertainment.

The Divine Wind expansion changed Ming considerably, primarily by introducing Factions. Ming is either ruled by the Eunuch faction, the Bureaucrats or the Temple faction. Each Faction poses certain restrictions and penalties on you or providing bonuses and opportunities.

I've played Divine Wind Ming once before. In general it went well, Westernizing in about 1560 and having some modest conquests in the Far East, but almost all of the game was spent with the Bureaucrats in power. While this works, it's a bit boring and far from optimal. So for this game I want to try to balance the three factions.

The philosophy behind the approach is that if Ming switches often between leading factions, their limitations become much less severe. It's not really necessary to be able to declare war all of the time, but it's a major hindrance if you can't declare war for say forty consecutive years.

The main methods of changing the influence of the individual factions are domestic slider settings, monarch stats and events. The idea is that I will try to set the domestic sliders so that they increase/decrease each faction's influence the same way. This way each faction will have the same influence before monarch stats and events, which can be used to select which faction will lead.

Another major goal in this campaign will be maintaining the Mandate of Heaven. I will go into more detail later but for now it's enough to know that it's important to have the Mandate.

The last major goal will be Westernization. Ming's tech group, Chinese, is very weak, with only 40% research speed compared to the Western group. Westernization is necessary to make Ming a true world power.

To sum it up, three main goals will be pursued:1) Balance between the factions
2) Westernization
3) Maintaining the Mandate of Heaven

The rest of the strategy will become clear along the AAR. In the next episode I will go into more detail with the Factions.

Last edited by knul; 30-03-2011 at 01:45.
Reason: Beta patching in 1640 added.

A combination between a naval and colonial policy, the Eunuch faction enables the sending of merchants, colonists and gives you the full use of the naval focelimit. However, you cannot build anything, send missionaries or declare war.
Influence of the Eunuch faction is determined by:

The hawk faction, the Temple faction is the only faction that allows you to declare war. It also allows you to send missionaries to help subduing your new conquests. However, this military policy comes at the price of economic paralysis. No colonists and no merchants can be used, nor buildings can be made. Also, both naval and land forcelimits are slashed, forcing me to conquer with relative small armies.
Influence of the Temple faction comes from:

The Bureaucrats faction
The builder's dream come true the Bureaucrats will help you turn Ming into an economic powerhouse. With the Bureaucrats in power, you can construct buildings. To to this properly, they even provide a hefty +.50 magistrates per year. Surprisingly, they also allow you the full use of the land forcelimits, so that you can maintain a large defence force. However, no other options are available, including the use of merchants which would be very welcome for economic buildup.

A last remark on the factions that they all forbid to build beyond your forcelimits, so that the forcelimit reductions are no joke.

The initial balance of power

Ming starts with the following slider settings:

Besides Centralisation/Decentralisation and Offensive/Defensive, all sliders change the influence of the Factions. The combined influence (hah) of all the sliders on Faction influences is:

Eunuch faction: -1.75

Temple faction: +0.25

Bureaucrat faction: +1.50

As you can see, the Bureaucrats are firmly entrenched at the start, even if they don't start as leading faction. The Eunuch faction is the weakest, leaving the Temple faction as the moderate faction. The quickest way to balance the factions is to weaken the Bureaucrats and strengthening the Eunuchs so that both are level with the Temple faction.

However, Westernization requires a Innovative/Narrowminded setting of -3 or less. This means that the Temple faction will go to -0.75 influence if Quality/Quantity remains 0. To get both the Bureaucrat and the Eunuch faction to a basic influence factor of -0.75, we need at least 13 slider changes. This will take about 160 years with 12.5 years/slider change. An additional 5 slides towards Centralisation is required for Westernization. So hopefully around 1650 we have a balanced Westernized Ming, ready to face the 17th century!

When the Eunuchs are in power. That's the trick with the factions: you know what they allow because it is forbidden by the other factions (you can NOT send missionaries when the Eunuchs or Bureaucrats are in power, so you can send them when the temple is in power).

Interested. I tried ming but I found the game got boring fast. Interested to see what the AI will do on those settings, and what your strategy will be.

When the Eunuchs are in power. That's the trick with the factions: you know what they allow because it is forbidden by the other factions (you can NOT send missionaries when the Eunuchs or Bureaucrats are in power, so you can send them when the temple is in power).

Interested. I tried ming but I found the game got boring fast. Interested to see what the AI will do on those settings, and what your strategy will be.

thats way I dont play vinilla, but MMU... tried that? its not sooo hard as peaple say, granted no cheese easy as vinilla.

When the Eunuchs are in power. That's the trick with the factions: you know what they allow because it is forbidden by the other factions (you can NOT send missionaries when the Eunuchs or Bureaucrats are in power, so you can send them when the temple is in power).

Interested. I tried ming but I found the game got boring fast. Interested to see what the AI will do on those settings, and what your strategy will be.

Good explanation on the factions, Sad King Billy. Hopefully I can spice up the game and its AAR enough to make it interesting.

Our first emperor is Jianwen, with the stats ADM 6, DIP 4 and MIL 6. With a well entrenched Bureaucrat faction, his stats don't matter for the faction balance. His heir Yongle is a bit weaker, with ADM 4, DIP 4 and MIL 5.

In this AAR, I will document a couple of important statistics so that you, dear readers, can see how the nation grows economically and in military. At the start of Jianwen's reign, the nation's condition is as follows:

The three numbers for army indicate the amount of infantry/cavalry/artillery regiments, for the navy the numbers represent the amount of Big Ships/Small Ships/Galleys/Transports. I will also show the yearly income divided by provinces, as that is a rough indicator of the quality of the economy, as research and stability costs are greatly dependend on empire size.

The first thing I do is a move towards Free Subjects. Luckily, the slider event wasn't a loss of stability, a nice start. The reason for making thise move is that I want to weaken the Bureaucrats. With a weaker Bureaucrat Faction it becomes more likely for the Temple Faction to lead, enabling me the option to declare war.

Research will first focus on Government tech in order to get the first National Idea slot. I fill up my advisor slots with a couple of 5-6 star advisors, as Ming gets a lot of good advisors at the start.

At last, the game starts.

To the north are two horde nations, the Oirat Horde and the Mongol Khanate. Hordes are also a new feature in Divine Wind. Horde nations are always at war unless they receive tribute or due to a truce. I immeadetly pay the Oirat Horde (grey) a tribute of 1.2 ducats/month, so that we can concentrate on the Mongol Khanate (green). Their armies are much smaller than mine so they are easily defeated even without me having Military Drill.

I quickly send colonists while the Eunuchs are still in power. Only Ordos and Dornod were succesfully colonised before the Bureaucrats forbid me to send more colonists. One colonist failed, so at most I could have gained 3 provinces. I also manage to get 5 merchants into Nanjing before the change in leading faction.

This is one of the new events for Ming, Examinations, a faction influence event. In this event, which only fires when the Bureaucrats are in power, you can get some magistrates, Legitimacy, Prestige and some other things or you can get a nice boost in research, with both options giving the Bureaucrats more influence. At the moment I think tech investment is the better option, as it represents more than a year in investment.

In May 1407 I get the first strengthen/weaken event. The first option gives the Bureaucrats +5 influence but costs me all my treasury, so I choose the second option. This weakens the Bureaucrat faction with -5 influence but with 56 Influence they don't have to worry about losing the lead.

When the factions are balanced in domestic slider influences, I hope that by using events like this I can select which faction will lead. However, that dream will have to wait for many decades!

In 1405 I reach Government tech level 4 and thus can select my first National Idea. As you can see, I have chosen Patron of the Arts. There are three reasons why. First, I think that the best first National Ideas are Military drill, National Trade Policy and Patron of the Arts. I can't trade (well) for a long time, so no NTP, and Ming starts with a strong enough military that Military Drill is not necessary. Second, it's important for Ming to be able to hire high level Grand Marshalls at a whim. Third, Patron of the Arts enables the Architectural Development event.

This event gives you the option to slide 2 steps towards Innovative. In episode 1 I stated that we needed 18 slider moves to obtain faction balance and Westernization. That is without taking the Innovative slider changes into account. I count on the Architectural Development event to fire at least twice before all the other slider moves have completed. Architectural Development only fires with Patron of the Arts and a ADM 6 monarch, with a mean time to fire of 30 years. I could be stuck with ADM 5 or worse monarchs, but I still think that counting on this event to fire twice in say 180 years is a save bet.

Another Examinations event in 1409 (at April 1st!). Now I choose the first option, as Government tech is less important for the time being.

The Chagatai Horde becomes a neighbour in 1410, having won a war against the Oirat Horde. I pay them 1.8 ducats/month in tribute to keep them off. Why do I pay them instead of fighting? Because it costs more in army maintenance to fight them than to pay tribute and since I can't send colonists, there is little for me to gain in war with the hordes.

In September 1412 Dornod and Ordos have defected to me from the Mongol Khanate and we reached Production tech level 4, enabling me to build constables. After using magistrates to buy a lot of paintings, they will now be put to work in tax collection. Good timing too, as my cultural tradition is at 100% To top it off, the second slider change is available, which will be a move towards Free Subjects. A busy month!

In 1413 yet another Examinations fires, giving me some magistrates to play with. Say what you will, the Bureaucrats are active.

Some foreign news: the Taira Daiymo is annexed in November 1420. It looks like I have to face a unified Japan quite early.

In 1425 I get my second slider move and once again I make a move towards Free Subjects. This time I lose stability, but with a level 6 artist and the Mandate of Heaven that's no problem.

In 1426 the first Chinese University is build! Patron of the Arts is already paying off! Also, as you can see, the Oirat Horde has driven the Chagatai Horde away from my lands, so that I only have to pay tribute to them. I would have send a gift to the Oirat Horde if they didn't only care about iron and gold.

Friday the 13th is really an unlucky day, as at april 13th 1429 the heir Yongle dies at the ripe age of 69. Apparantly his brother Xuande dies from a heart attack upon hearing this news, as he dies the same day. Young Hongxi is now the next in line, but will likely ascent without the Mandate of Heaven as his claim on the throne is weak.

In 1429 we have Examinations again. More constables are build with the magistrates gained.

A very welcome Architectural development event happens to us. Exactly after its average time of firng, 30 years, nonetheless! We only need one more Architectural development event to be ready for Westernization regarding Innovation (we still need 5 moves towards Centralisation to be completely ready). The only downside to this wonderful event is that the Temple Faction is weakened by it, so we have to wait for the Temple Faction to gain leadership.

In 1436 the Temple Faction speaks up for the first time. I can get +5 influence with the Temple Faction, but as you can see the balance between the factions is still heavily in favour of the Bureaucrats. A +5 bonus to the Temple faction wouldn't change leadership, so I let the ambassador go in peace.

The event the Class of 1437 of Bozhou University happens. These the class of xxxx events are a very nice side benefit from universities, which either give a magistrate or +10% cultural tradition. I choose the +1 magistrate.

In 1438 I get to move a domestic slider once again. I again move towards Free Subjects and once again I lose 1 stability. Still, Ming is in good shape to take this stability hits.

Another Faction event happens in 1443:

The Literati Publishes event either helps us with getting cultural tradition and Bureaucrat influence or losing both cultural tradition and Bureaucrat influence. I just take the cultural tradition as there is no way to remove the Bureaucrats from power yet.

Seems that I wasn't overly optimistic to expect at least 2 Architectural Developments during the first 160 years. On the other hand, I didn't expend Jianmen to reign for more than 50 years!

The next decade sees little action. In 1446 another literati publishes. In 1451 it's time to move a domestic slider, to Free Subjects of course, and again I lose 1 stability. Seems that I am particulary unlucky with my Free Subjects events in this campaign, but then again, I don't need the -2% inflation event. Better bad luck here than were it matters!

After a reign of 56 years, Jianwen joins his ancestors in 1455, leaving the empire in the reasonably competent hands of his son Hongxi, who lacks the support of Heaven. Hongguang must be a nephew or something of Hongxi, not his son, as Hongxi is only 7 years older than Hongguang.

Stats
At the end of each monarch's reign, I will give a short overview of the change in the major national statistics. At the end of Jianwen's reign, the nation's condition is as follows:

The big income increase is mainly caused by having some trade income (none at the start) and by building 42 constables, 22 markets and a university.

All in all I think Jianwen will be remembered by his very progressive policy, giving more freedom to the serfs and giving the intellectuals more room to develop new ideas. Hopefully Hongxi's reign will be as lengthy and prosperous as his father's!

Next episode: Hongxi at the helm

Last edited by knul; 12-01-2011 at 20:46.
Reason: Corrected army and navy stats

Rather unsurprisingly, you're filthy rich and have tons of manpower, but then you are China after all

Yes. As restricting as the factions are, they don't restrict manpower nor do they impose any direct penalties on the economy. I still have my 5 traders in Nanjing, so economically I don't really miss the Eunuchs.

Originally Posted by King_Nothing-

I dont get how many ships and regiments you have. It says you have 42 regiments, but you only have 28 inf and 11 cav. Same problem with ships

Oops! I'll correct that when I get home. Well spotted.

Originally Posted by Boris ze Spider

I enjoy this aar a lot, keep it up.

Good to hear. Also, if people have ideas or suggestions on how to play Ming or on how my strategy sucks, feel free to discuss them!

*EDIT* Does anyone have a clue about the strange heir change? My heir Yongle dies, I get a new heir and on the same day that heir is replaced. I've never encountered this and I assume that the heir just died extremely quickly (he was old, to be fair).

As expected, Hongxi starts his reign without the Mandate of Heaven. This is bad. First, let me show you what the Mandate of Heaven does.

It's a very nice national modifier that gives an enormous reduction to revolt risk and very strong bonusses to stability cost and investment. This means that while Ming's ruler enjoys the Mandate of Heaven, there will be little to no internal trouble.

However, whenever Ming's stability becomes negative or the monarch's Legitimacy becomes lower than 60%, we lose the Mandate of Heaven modifier and instead get the “Mandate of Heaven Lost” modifier.

It's the complete opposite, with a huge increase in revolt risk and enormous high stability cost. Additionally, we also suffer from a very stiff -5% Legitimacy/year penalty. As you can see, the difference between having the Mandate and losing it is huge: a 10% revolt risk difference for example! To regain the Mandate, stability must be zero or higher AND Legitimacy must be 60% or higher, a difficult task because of the “Mandate of Heaven Lost” penalties.

Luckily for Hongxi, the Mandate can be regained quite easily, as we just have to regain 30% Legitimacy. I already anticipated the need for Legitimacy during the closing years of Jianwen's reign and therefore Hongxi starts with a 5 star Grand Marshall who generates +5% Legitimacy per year. Furthermore, we are trade leader in chinaware, which results in another +5% Legitimacy per year. Being a trade leader in a trade good now gives certain bonuses in Divine Wind. For Ming it's very fortunate that it has ready access to most of the world's chinaware, as without this trade leader bonus it would be extremely difficult to regain Legitimacy with “Mandate of Heaven Lost” in play. When we add the prestige bonus to Legitimacy gain and some marriages we get +6.5% Legitimacy a year, so if all goes to plan we will regain the Mandate in about 5 years.

In 1456 Japan declares war on little Ryukyu. As Ryukyu is within our Sphere of Interest, we are called to arms and are at war with Japan.

The war sees swift action. By Japan, mostly. Before I react, the Shogun Minamoto lands troops on Ryukyu. I try to get an army scrambled from the northern border to relieve Ryukyu to captured, but the sneaky samurai assault its fortress, take control and annex Ryukyu.

Thoroughly embarassed for failing to defend the future world conqueror, I still fight on. With our much larger fleet we managed to sink most of Japan's fleet, reducing it to about 3 ships that don't dare to leave their harbors anymore.

During all of this bickering, Brigands on the Silk Road happens to us, an event that only takes place during periods of lost Mandate. Two of its options provide hefty penalties, but the “set up local militia” gives +1 centralisation! I suspect this is not entirely the way this should be, but I welcome this opportunity nonetheless. Only four more Centralisation moves to go!

A couple of weeks later we get another nice event due to the loss of the Mandate of Heaven: a reputation for cruelty. The choice is clear here: we can get 30% Legitimacy for a mere 2 Infamy. This ensures that Hongxi will now rule with the Mandate of Heaven.

Attentive readers will notice that in the background you can see my short-lived and unsuccesful assault on Japanese ground.

Luckily, we were only in the despicable state of lost Mandate for about a year. Hopefully that will be a precedent for future Mandate-loss periods.

In 1459 I enact the province decision Expanded Bureaucracy. Funny enough, expanding the bureacracy does not chance the influence of the Bureaucrat faction one bit. Good thing too, as we want a weaker Bureacracrat faction, not a stronger one.

The reason I enact the Expanded Bureaucracy decision so late is because early magistrates aren't that valuable. Only when more buildings become available do magistrates become powerful. At the start you basically mainly use magistrates to get paintings for higher cultural tradition. Enacting the expansion later saves a bit of income, as Expanded Bureaucracy gives a -5% penalty to tax income. Still, it is entirely viable I think to do Expanded Bureaucracy as soon as you have 4 magistrates.

Besides the thrilling expansion of the bureacracracy, Japan decided to let peace break out and signed a white peace with us, ending a 3 year war which saw about 3 months of fighting.

In 1460 I start construction on the Forbidden City. Why did I chose to do that so late? Simple: I completely forgot about it until I enacted Expanded Bureacracracy. Oops.

The year 1464 sees another domestic slider move, again I choose for a Free Subjects move, this time I get the good event, a -2% inflation reduction that of course is completely useless as we don't have any inflation. Still, I appreciate the thought.

In 1466 the Forbidden City is built and I instantly regret building it. It's just so strong for so little cost. A nationwide -1 revolt risk modifier? A -20% stability cost? And last but not least an enormous +5% prestige? It screams overpowered all over. Basically with the Forbidden City I do not have to worry about prestige anymore.

On a more positive note, our third Architectural Development! I choose to move 2 toward Innovative, meaning we are now at maximal Innovativeness.

In 1472 the mongols attack again, as they do every time after the truce expires. However, the shock of the 5 regiment strong Mongol Horde scares Hongxi so much that he promptly dies of a heart attack, after a short reign of only 17 years.

I admit, this wasn't the best played session, the Japanese War could have gone better and the whole Forbidden City oversight was also a bit embarassing. It was only luck that gave us a couple of nice slider movement events and a significant shortening of our lost Mandate. Hopefully things will go better under Hongguang I and his heir Hongguang II.

Suggestion: you could add "change from start" to your little stat breakdown at the end of each post, it would be interesting to see just how significant the compounded improvements from each ruler end up being.